The only light in town turned on after midnight was on the back porch of the Owens house. It had been lit for hundreds of years, first by oil, then by gas, now by electricity. Moths fluttered through the ivy. This was the hour when women came to visit, looking for cures for hives or heartbreak or fever. Local people might not like the Owens family, they might cross to the other side of the street when they saw Isabelle on her way to the market with a black umbrella held overhead to ward off the sun, but as soon as they were in need, they battled the thornbushes and vines to reach the porch and ring the bell, knowing they were welcome when the porch light was turned on. They were invited into the kitchen, where they sat at the old pine table. Then they told their stories, some in too great detail.
“Be brief,” Isabelle always said, and because of her stern expression they always were. The price for a cure might be as low as half a dozen eggs or as high as a diamond ring, depending on the circumstances. A token payment was fine in exchange for horseradish and cayenne for coughs, dill seeds to disperse hiccoughs, Fever Tea to nip flu in the bud, or Frustration Tea to soothe sleepless nights for the mother of a wayward son. But there were often demands for remedies that were far pricier, cures that might cost whatever a person held most precious. To snatch a man who belonged to another, to weave a web that disguised wrongdoings, to set a criminal on the right path, to reach someone who was standing on the precipice of despair and pull them back to life, such cures were expensive. Franny had stumbled upon some of the more disquieting ingredients in the pantry: the bloody heart of a dove, small frogs, a glass vial containing teeth, strands of hair to boil or burn depending on whether you wanted to call someone to you or send them away.
Franny had taken to sitting on the back staircase to eavesdrop. She’d bought a blue notebook in the pharmacy to write down her aunt’s remedies. Star tulip to understand dreams, bee balm for a restful sleep, black mustard seed to repel nightmares, remedies that used essential oils of almond or apricot or myrrh from thorn trees in the desert. Two eggs, which must never be eaten, set under a bed to clean a tainted atmosphere. Vinegar as a cleansing bath. Garlic, salt, and rosemary, the ancient spell to cast away evil.
For women who wanted a child, mistletoe was to be strung over their beds. If that had no effect, they must tie nine knots in a strong rope, then burn the rope and eat the ashes and soon enough they would conceive. Blue must be worn for protection. Moonstones were useful in connecting with the living, topaz to contact the dead. Copper, sacred to Venus, will call a man to you, and black tourmaline will eliminate jealousy. When it came to love, you must always be careful. If you dropped something belonging to the man you loved into a candle flame, then added pine needles and marigold flowers, he would arrive on your doorstep by morning, so you would do well to be certain you wanted him there. The most basic and reliable love potion was made from anise, rosemary, honey, and cloves boiled for nine hours on the back burner of the old stove. It had always cost $9.99 and was therefore called Love Potion Number Nine, which worked best on the ninth hour of the ninth day of the ninth month.
After listening in, Franny had decided that magic was not so very far from science. Both endeavors searched for meaning where there was none, light in the darkness, answers to questions too difficult for mortals to comprehend. Aunt Isabelle knew her niece was there on the stairs taking notes, but said nothing. She had a special fondness for Franny. They were alike in more ways than Franny would care to know.
Fortunately, Isabelle was up late with her customers, and could be depended upon to nap in the afternoons. Francis and Jet and Vincent therefore had the gift of long languid days when they were left to their own devices. They trooped into town, past an old cemetery where the only name on the headstones was Owens. They stopped at the rusty fence and stood in silence, a bit overwhelmed by all those mossy stones. When Jet wanted to explore, the others refused.
“It’s summer and we’re free. Let’s live a little,” Franny said, grabbing hold of Jet’s arm to pull her past the cemetery gates.
“Let’s live a lot,” Vincent suggested. “Or at least as much as we can in this hick town.”
They ordered ice cream sodas at the linoleum counter of the old pharmacy, lingered on leafy lanes, and sprawled on the grass in the park to watch the territorial swans chase badly behaved children through the grass, which left them in gales of laughter. Their favorite activity on especially hot days was a hike to Leech Lake, a spot most people avoided, for if a swimmer waded into the murky depths past the reeds, scores of leeches awaited. Franny kept a packet of salt in her backpack to disperse any of the leeches that attached themselves, but for some reason none even came close.
“Be gone,” she cried, and they were.
The Owens siblings spent hours sunbathing, then they dared each other to dive off the high rock ledges and take the plunge into the ice-cold, green water. No matter how deeply they dove, they immediately popped back up to the surface, shivering and sputtering, unable to sink or even keep their heads underwater.
“We’re oddly buoyant,” Jet said cheerfully, floating on her back, splashing water into the air. Even in her old black bathing suit she was gorgeous, the sort of young woman in bloom who often incites jealousy or lust.
“You know who can’t be drowned,” Vincent remarked from his perch on a flat rock. He had learned all about this in The Magus, with illustrations of women being tied to stools and sunk into ponds. He shoved his long hair back with one hand, knowing his father would pitch a fit when he arrived back in the city with this thick mop. When his sisters didn’t respond and merely looked at him with confused expressions, he provided the answer. “Witches.”
“Everything can be explained with scientific evidence,” Franny said in her blunt, forthright manner. “I don’t believe in fairy tales.”
“Franny,” Vincent said in a firm tone. “You know who we are.”
She didn’t like her brother’s implication. Were they subhuman beings, among those creatures to be feared and chased by mobs through the streets? Was that why the neighbors avoided them, and why, on that odd day in the kitchen when they had tested themselves, the table had risen?
“I love fairy tales,” Jet said dreamily. She felt like a water nymph when she floated in the lake, a pure elemental spirit. She toweled off before placing a lace cloth over a table-shaped rock, where she set out a lunch of egg-salad sandwiches and celery sticks. She’d filled the thermos with Frustration Tea from a recipe she’d found in Aunt Isabelle’s kitchen. Anyone partaking of this drink would be granted good humor and cheerfulness, attributes of which Jet believed Franny was sorely in need.
A grin spread across Vincent’s face as they discussed their inability to sink. “I think what we are is pretty clear.” He raised his arms and the finches in the thickets took flight in a single swirling cloud. “See what I mean? We’re not normal.”
“Normal is not a scientific term,” Franny said dismissively. “And anyone can frighten a finch. A cat could do that. Try calling them to you.” She held out one hand and several finches alit, chattering in her palm until she blew on them to shoo them away. She was quite proud of this particular ability.
“You’re proving my point!” Vincent laughed. He jumped into the lake, and then all but bounced, as if repelled. “Check it out!” he cried cheerfully as he floated just above the water.
That night at supper, Vincent gave his sisters a look, then turned to their aunt and asked if the stories he’d heard about the Owens family were true.
“You know who you are,” Isabelle responded. “And I suggest you never deny it.”
She told them of an Owens cousin named Maggie, who had come to stay one summer, and tried her best to befriend the locals, telling tales about her own family. How they danced naked in the garden, and took revenge on innocent people, and called to the heavens for hail and storms. She went so far as to write an opinion piece for the local newspaper, defaming the Owens name, suggesting they all be incarcerated.
&n
bsp; The family locked the door and told Maggie to go back to Boston. The outside world being against them was one thing, but one of their own? That was another matter entirely.
Maggie Owens was so enraged when she was cast onto the sidewalk with her suitcase that she took up cursing, and with every curse she grew smaller and smaller. Some spells work against you, or perhaps the Owens cousins inside the house threw up a black reversing mirror. Each wicked word Maggie spoke was turned back upon her. She couldn’t even unlatch the lock on the door. Whatever magic ran through her blood had evaporated. She’d denied who she was, and when that happens it’s easy enough to become something else entirely, most likely the first creature you see, which in her case was a rabbit darting through the garden. Maggie went to sleep in the grass a woman, and awoke as a rabbit. Now she ate weeds and drank milk that was left to her in a saucer.
“Keep your eyes open,” Isabelle told the siblings. “You may see her in the yard. This is what happens when you repudiate who you are. Once you do that, life works against you, and your fate is no longer your own.”
Jet’s favorite place to be was the garden. She adored the shady pools of greenery where azaleas and lily of the valley grew wild, but ever since they’d been told their cousin’s story, she was anxious when rabbits came to eat parsley and mint and the curly Boston lettuce that was planted in neat rows.
“We’ll never be turned into rabbits, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Franny said. “We’re not so foolish.”
“I’d rather be a fox,” Vincent announced. He was teaching himself a Ramblin’ Jack Elliott song on the guitar. “Stealthy, sly, under the radar.”
“I’d prefer to be a cat,” Jet said. Their aunt had six black cats. One, a kitten named Wren, had grown particularly attached to Jet and often followed her as she pulled weeds. Jet had a nagging suspicion that Isabelle had told the story of their wayward cousin directly to her, as a warning for all those times she’d wanted to be an ordinary girl.
A large, fearless rabbit was glaring at them. It had black whiskers and gray eyes. Jet felt her skin grow cold. “Maggie?” she said in a soft voice. There was no answer. “Shall we give her milk?” she asked Franny.
“Milk?” Franny was contemptuous. “She’s only a rabbit, nothing more.” Franny tossed some tufts of grass in the rabbit’s direction. “Shoo!” she commanded.
To their dismay the rabbit stayed exactly where it was, solemnly chewing dandelion greens.
“It’s her,” Jet whispered, nudging her sister.
“Maggie?” Franny called. She didn’t believe their aunt’s story for a minute, yet there was definitely something odd about this creature. “Get out!” she told the thing.
Jet thought it might be better to ask than to command. “O rabbit, please leave us be,” she said respectfully and sweetly. “We’re sorry you’re no longer a woman, but that was your doing, not ours.”
The rabbit obeyed, hopping into the woody area where the beehive stood. While Jet piled up ragweed and brambles she decided she would faithfully set out a saucer of milk every morning. Franny watched the retreat of the rabbit and wondered if beneath her sister’s gentle nature there wasn’t more than she and Vincent had imagined. Perhaps they didn’t know her as well as they believed.
By now Franny had her own suspicions about their heritage. She had taken to going off by herself on rainy afternoons. While the others were lazing about she’d spent time at the public library, paging through old, inky issues of the Salem Mercury and the Essex Gazette. She’d discovered a legacy of witchcraft associated with the Owens family. In the town ledger, kept in the rather shabby rare book room, there was a list of crimes members of their family had been charged with in an era when any woman accused of unnatural acts might be drowned in Leech Lake. Witches, however, couldn’t be drowned unless they were properly weighed down with stones in their pockets or their boots or stuffed into their mouths, which were then sewn shut with black thread. The Owenses’ wrongdoings included bewitchment, enchantment, theft of a cow, using herbs to relieve illness, children born out of wedlock, and enemies who had suffered bad fortune. The first accuser had been John Hathorne, the judge at the trials that had been responsible for the deaths of so many innocent people.
Franny had come upon a notation that suggested Maria Owens’s journal was stored in the rare book room. The journal was stowed in a drawer that the librarian had to unlock with an iron key. The lock stuck, coming free only after much prodding. Inside the drawer was the thin book with a stained blue-gray cover, meticulously secured in plastic wrapping.
“Be careful with that,” the librarian warned. She was clearly afraid of the slim volume, which she herself refused to touch. She offered a pair of white gloves to Franny to slip on to ensure that she wouldn’t damage the delicate paper. There was so much dust in the room Franny had a wicked sneezing fit.
“You have exactly twenty minutes,” the librarian said. “Otherwise trouble could ensue.”
“Trouble?” Franny was curious.
“You know what I mean. This is a book of spells Maria Owens wrote while in prison. It should have been set on fire, but the board of the library refused to do so. They thought destroying it would bring bad luck to us, so we’ve kept it all this time, like it or not.”
Beware of love, Maria Owens had written on the first page of her journal. Know that for our family, love is a curse.
Franny worried over the mention of a curse. For all the time they’d been away she had been writing letters to Haylin. On Friday afternoons she brought them to the post office and picked up the ones he sent her via general delivery. In New York, Haylin was studying the ecosystem of the Loch, the meandering stream in a wooded area of Central Park called the Ravine. Fireflies that gathered there blinked on and off in sync. It was as if they had a single heartbeat, sending out the same message through the dark. Such incidents had been reported in the Great Smoky Mountains and in Allegheny National Forest, but Haylin seemed the first to have discovered the phenomenon in Manhattan.
That summer, Franny went to the rare book room every day to read the journal. The librarians grew to know her, becoming accustomed to the tall red-haired girl who came to examine spidery script so tiny she had to use a magnifying glass to make out the words of the remedies and cures. Franny brightened up the place with her quest for information and history, and a few of the librarians allowed her a full hour with the text, though it was strictly against the rules. They believed all books should be read, for as long as the reader liked.
When Franny came to the last page of Maria’s journal, she understood that a single broken heart had affected them all. Maria had been cast out by the father of her child, a man she never named. Suffice it to say he should have been my enemy, instead I fell in love with him and I made the mistake of declaring my love. She wanted to protect her daughter, and her granddaughter, and all of the Owens daughters to follow, ensuring that none among them would experience the sorrow she’d known or ruin the lives of those they might love. The curse was simple: Ruination for any man who fell in love with them.
Reading this, Franny paled.
It’s not the same here without you, Haylin had written in one of his letters.
Then, clearly embarrassed that he’d overstepped certain boundaries, he’d crossed out that line and wrote Boring here instead. But Franny had seen through the smear of black ink and knew the truth. It wasn’t the same without him either.
Do not ask what the spell is, or how it was accomplished. I have been betrayed and abandoned. I do not wish this for any member of my family.
“Don’t you think I look like her?” Jet asked one day when she found Franny sitting pensively on the window seat studying the portrait. One of Maria’s remedies called for the beating heart of a dove to be taken from the bird while it was alive. Another included collecting the hair and fingernail clippings of a disloyal man and burning them with cedar and sage.
“You don’t want to look like her,” Franny was quick
to respond. “She ended unhappily. Trust me, she was miserable. She was accused of witchery.”
Jet sat beside her sister. “I wonder if that would have happened to me if I was alive at that time. I can hear what people are thinking.”
“You cannot,” Franny said. And then, after a look at her sister, “Can you?”
“It’s not that I want to,” Jet said. “It just happens.”
“Fine. What am I thinking right now?”
“Franny,” Jet demurred. “Thoughts should be private things. I do my best not to listen in.”
“Seriously. Tell me. What am I thinking right now?”
Jet paused. She gathered her long, black hair in one hand and pursed her lips. Since coming to Massachusetts she had grown more beautiful each day. “You’re thinking we’re not like other people.”
“Well, I’ve always thought that.” Franny laughed, relieved that was all her sister had picked up. “That’s nothing new.”
Later, when Jet went out into the garden, she stood beneath the lilacs with their dusky heart-shaped leaves. Everything smelled like mint and regret.
I wish we were like other people.
That was what Franny had been thinking.
Oh, how I wish we could fall in love.
One bright Sunday the sisters awoke to find a third girl in their room. Their cousin April Owens had come to visit. April had been raised in the rarefied world of Beacon Hill. With her platinum blond hair pulled into waist-length braids, and the palest of pale gray eyes, she looked like a painting from an earlier era, yet she was oddly modern in her demeanor. For one thing, she carried a pack of cigarettes and a silver lighter, and she wore black eyeliner. She was bitter and fierce and she didn’t give a hoot about anyone’s opinions other than her own. Strangest of all, she kept a pet ferret on a leash; it ambled beside her, instantly making her far more interesting than any other girl they’d met.